


An Example in Bechdel Test Failure

by crescenteluce



Category: Supernatural
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-01-25
Updated: 2013-01-25
Packaged: 2017-11-26 20:42:30
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,986
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/654217
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/crescenteluce/pseuds/crescenteluce
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Gabriel and Dean are not bonding. They are also not middle school girls with embarrassing crushes on each other's brothers and most of all, they could easily pass the Bedchel test, if they really wanted to.</p>
            </blockquote>





	An Example in Bechdel Test Failure

When Dean gave up his normal routine of feelings-what-are-feelings to sulk in public, he made sure that everyone around him knew that he was not to be messed with. To accomplish this fact, he occupied the living room couch in Bobby’s house, Dr. Sexy reruns on repeat and wore an expression that made even Rumsfeld escape the room with his tail between his hind legs. He was perfectly content with sitting here until the world around him dissolved into a graveyard, but of course, the door slammed open to reveal a short blonde. 

‘Come any closer and I will be forced to summon every single demon I can think of.’ Dean snapped, expecting that Gabriel was sent by his brother to ‘cheer him up’, which in the archangel’s mind usually meant ‘inflict horrible and painfully embarrassing pranks on Dean’.

But he wasn’t attached to the ceiling yet, nor was there suddenly a flood of cats in the living room or was the TV stuck on an endless rerun of Call me Maybe. The archangel just stood there, a scowl on his face.

‘Winchester?’ 

‘Yes?’ 

‘Your brother sucks.’ 

Well, that didn’t go as expected. When Gabriel wasn’t wearing his usual shit-eating grin or conjuring continuous streams of candy directly into his mouth, the archangel just looked vaguely human. Like a very, very pissed off short guy that had just been slapped in the face by the girl whose pigtails he’d pulled for three years straight. 

“You’re one to talk.” Dean responded hatefully, remembering his own issues (oh god, he had issues over a guy. He could just better hand in his man card right now and learn to live as a chick) with Castiel.

Gabriel stood in the middle of the room for a couple more seconds with a pained expression on his face and for a moment, Dean was seriously worried that the archangel was going to cry. So he threw him a beer and moved a bit to make room on the couch.

“Sit down and shut up. This here is Dr. Sexy. Right now, he has the problem that the chick right there has agreed to marry him in the last episode but then she got hit by a loose wheel from the ambulance that crashed and now she has amnesia. The male nurse there is in love with the surgeon that is operating on his estranged wife, but that surgeon is in a secret lesbian relationship with the coma patient in room 402. Questions?”

“I think I’ll manage.” Gabriel said and curled up in the corner of the couch. 

\----------

They managed three hours and four episodes of comfortable silence when Dean’s curiosity got the best of him. The moment Dr. Sexy had dyed his long locks brown in a way to let go of his past as a skirt chaser and become a serious husband (a plot that had lasted all of thirty three minutes), Gabriel had immediately changed his alliance from the showrunner to supporting the evil doctor that tried to blackmail Dr. Sexy with the three months he had spent in a cult before he’d attended medical school. 

“So,” Dean said, watching Gabriel glare at the full close up of Dr. Sexy. “you and my brother…”

“Finish that sentence and you’ll no longer have a mouth to speak with.” 

“I’m just saying, you act like you were ditched by your prom date.” 

“Opposed to you looking like Dr. Ramirez when his wife told him they couldn’t be together because she was a FBI-agent.”

Touché. Opening another beer, Dean glared at the archangel, a look that was promptly answered with an equally nasty scowl. Before them, Dr. Sexy’s heartfelt confession that he had Ebola was cut short by the ending credits rolling over the screen (Dean knew it would be okay. Dr. Sexy had been renewed for season twelve and so had every regular character’s contract).

“Put in season four, the storyline between Dr. Sexy and the nurse from Kazakhstan was awesome.”

Only the archangel didn’t move from the couch. He just sat there, looking painfully conflicted, fiddling with the bottle cap between his fingers. Dean was moments away of physically kicking him from the couch to tell him that if he didn’t take his duties as dvd-changer seriously, he would soon be fired from the living room. 

“I’ll tell if you tell.”

Oh, so Gabriel did want to talk. And although Dean wasn’t really sure that he could manage hearing stories about his little brother’s potential sex life involving a celestial being, the need of just discussing his own conflicts with someone that was not Sam or Bobby was weighing on him a little heavier. Because yeah, as far as emotional heart-to-hearts went, Bobby and Sam were the two most useless fuckers on this green earth. 

“Bobby, can I ask you something? It’s about Cas. Sometimes I just wonder-“  
“There’s the flaw boy, it’s right there. You thinkin’ is the actual problem.”

“Sam, I have to talk to you about Cas. I’ve had a little trouble with-“  
“It’s simple, Dean. You just have to allow yourself to feel and then if you have bared your soul and talked about it with him, I’m sure your emotions-“  
“Shut the fuck up, Sammy, I’m feeling my balls dissolve with every second word you speak.”

(So maybe the conversation with Sam didn’t really go like that, but it just really felt like every second word that Sam uttered was a synonym of the words feelings, talking about feelings or actually dealing with feelings.)

“You start, dickwad.” 

“Sometimes I wonder how it’s possible that a charming personality as yourself can have zero friends and then you open your mouth and words come out and I remember.”

“Do I have to remind you that you were the one that came to me to bitch about the crush you have on my little brother?”

“Fine! I told your a brother that I would very much like to ride him as the moose that he is and at first he laughed at me and when I told him I was serious, he slammed a door in my face and put himself in a circle of Holy Oil, threatening that if I set as much as one foot inside, he’d light it on fire.”

Gabriel huffed and crossed his arms, very pointedly not looking at Dean. And yeah, Dean might be what some call a ‘righteous man’, but it was taking all of his righteousness to not start laughing at Gabriel. He settled for biting his lip with enough force to draw blood and opening another beer while the archangel was turning the act of avoiding Dean’s eyes into a fucking art form. 

“So.” Dean says, not sure if he can utter more that one syllable without dissolving in maniacal laughter because for someone who’s been around for multiple millennia, Gabriel sure made a rookie mistake. He’s not even as grossed out as he expected, because the fact that his brother took it on himself to protect his virtue with Holy Oil is the most hilarious shit he’s seen in a very, very long time. 

It takes him five minutes until he’s fairly sure that he can respond to Gabriel without any risk of the archangel putting him on Jupiter. In the meantime, Gabriel has changed his appearance from a sulking look to downright pouting and it promptly takes Dean a minute extra before he can respond.

“So.” He repeats. “You’re saying that it coulda gone better?”

“That’s it!” The archangel looked practically livid. “You’re going to Uranus, have fun-“  
He’s already halfway through raising his fingers to snap Dean far, far away from here, but the Winchester brother swiftly crushed his hand beneath a boot. 

“You know that I don’t actually need to snap my fingers, right? It’s just for show.”

“I figured.” Dean responded, not making any attempts to release the archangel. “But you need to calm your tits, because I happen to have the exact solution for your problems and by giving that information, I want every mocking right of your future relationship forever.” 

“One year, and only if it works.” 

“Deal. What I wanted to say is that you made a rookie mistake. You forgot that my brother is actually a girl.” 

“I swear to-“

“No, no, hear me out. Sammy is a chick because he needs to be wooed. Figure that amongst the last people he slept with, there was a demon and a werewolf and practically every one of his squeezes has tried to kill him at one point or another, he kinda needs to know that you’re serious before he puts out.”

“You’ve got to be kidding me.”

“Nope. Sammy is actually a chick.”

“No, I mean that you’re speaking and for once there’s not bullshit coming from that cakehole you call your mouth. It’s a Christmas miracle.”

“It’s June.”

“A slightly delayed Christmas miracle.”

“I’m not even pissed at you for saying that.” Dean said, a smug look on his face. “Because when you and my brother get it on in a way I will not want to know about ever, you’ll have lost all rights to fuck with me forever.” 

“Except of course, when I listen to your bitching about my little bro, because apparently this chick-flick moment deserves a sequel.” 

“Amen to that.”

“Preach it.”

The sound of two beer bottles clinking together was followed by an ominous silence. The Dr. Sexy DVD had automatically started to play episode one again and Dean tried to decide between dropping the matter and telling the archangel what was on his mind, because he wasn’t really sure if he wanted to bare his fucking soul to the Trickster of all people.

“You know I’m perfectly capable of reading your mind, right?” Gabriel stretched his legs in front of him, snapping up a horrible fluffy and tasteless stool to rest his socked feet on. “So I’m giving you the choice of being horribly embarrassed by telling me or being outright humiliated when I go searching in your mind for it and stumble across the memory of your first lay or something.”

“Point taken, fuckface.” 

“Don’t give me any ideas, sweetheart.” 

“Fuck you.”

“Ditto.”

The banter between the hunter and the archangel had devolved to downright childish at the time that the trickster lazily snapped his fingers and Dean was no longer able to produce any sound. 

“I’m gonna tell you this one time and only one time. You tell me, or I’ll find out. It’s going to be a very, very embarrassing experience for you either way and I’m going to enjoy both options immensely. You’re kinda between a rock and a hard place already, so just spill, because your epic romance between you and my brother has been going on too long for everyone involved. I’m not kidding, I think that every time you and Castiel stare at each other for two hours again Bobby is considering killing you both.” 

Another snap of his fingers and Dean started coughing.

“What’s the problem, Dean-o? Is it the fact that he has a dick? Because angels are-“

“Yeah, yeah, I know, they’re genderless. But no, the fact that he is a guy doesn’t really bother me.”

“Hm.” Gabriel couldn’t help himself, he was kind of intrigued. The fact that Dean had already made his peace with the fact that he was head over fucking heels for a guy testified that Dean was more emotionally mature than he had expected.

“Is it the fact that he’s an angel? Because yours truly can tell you that that’s not really an issue up above, scout’s honour.”

“No. It’s not him. It’s-“

“Are you seriously going to say it’s not you, it’s me? Is that seriously what you’re going to tell Cas? This I have to see, because I didn’t expect you to be such a coward that you can’t be honest-“

“Shut the fuck up, Gabriel.” It was now Dean’s turn to be very, very angry. “It is me. I know that Cas thinks he’s in love with me, but he’s not. He can’t be, because I’m not a person to be loved. I’m a person that everybody needs to get the fuck away from, because I fuck shit up and I don’t want that to happen to Cas.”

Gabriel would be lying if he said he expected this, but with every word that came from the older Winchester’s mouth, realisation slapped him in the face. It had always been there, buried underneath a thin layer of pretend and assume, but it had been concealed well enough to fool the trickster. 

And then he started laughing. Lacking the self-control that Dean had earlier, he tipped his head back and dissolved into a fit of downright cackling. It took the hunter approximately 0.8 seconds to go through the five stages of extreme anger, starting with a look of disbelief and ending with turning a dangerous shade of red. Gabriel had a short moment of sense where he locked the hunter firmly in his place on the couch, giving him time to wipe the tears of laughter from his eyes.

“Goddammit, release me! I’m gonna-“

“Shut up, Winchester. It’s not everyday that a man is faced with the fact that one of the only humans he can stand is a fifteen year old girl.”

Dean was on the verge of actually combusting with anger, so he figured that the best moment to start explaining was probably now. 

“I really, really didn’t know that you were serious with the whole I-don’t-deserve-to-be-loved act, because it’s kind of hilarious to see it happen to you of all people. You do know that you’re actually one of probably five humans that I would take a bullet for, right?”

“That’s easy to say if taking a bullet is not going to harm you in any way.”

“I meant it in the proverbial sense of the word, Dean-o. What I meant to say is that the whole routine of self-hate is really overdone, because you’re kind of an exceptional human being. It’s like hearing Gandhi say that he just wants to know if he’s done some good in his time, that’s how ridiculous this is. You’re a good person and that’s probably the reason why I wouldn’t mind if you and my brother decide to have babies or shit. Think of it this way, you love Sam more than anything, right?”

“What does-“

“I’m really tired of having to cut you off mid-sentence, dude. It’s a yes or no question.”

“Yes.” 

“And would you have given your approval to my desire to sodomize your brother if I was nothing more than an exceptional person… Angel?

Dean was clearly torn between revealing to Gabriel that maybe he didn’t hate his guts and his evident disapproval in Gabriel’s wording.

“Yes. And please never say the words ‘brother’ and ‘sodomize’ in one sentence again or I will have to bleach my brain.”

“Point taken. Now, I’m a big brother, much like you and I dare you to tell me that I don’t love Castiel every bit as much as you love Sam. So the fact that I don’t mind that you’re going to have your merry way with Cas as soon as this conversation ends is only because I think you’re kind of a nice guy and that Cas should be lucky to have you.”

A beat of silence. “Although not as lucky as you are to have my little brother, but that kind of speaks for itself.” 

Another long stretch of silence, in which the conversation almost gained consciousness and went off to get itself crowned as the absolute ruler and king of all chick-flick moments in the history of ever. The two men desperately racked their brains to find a way to escape the room, because there was a limit of how much honesty and compliments could be spoken in one day and that limit had not only been passed, but also taken by the hand and trampled on before setting it on fire. 

“Wow.” Both heads snapped to the left, where Jo was standing in the doorway with a bowl of cereal in her hands. “The Bechdel test has never been failed in these epic proportions, if you ask me.” 

In the stunned silence that followed, she made her way to the couch and sat down between the angel and the hunter, pointing her spoon at the screen.

“Can we watch season four? The nurse from Kazakhstan was awesome there.”

When there wasn’t any reaction, she rolled her eyes and took it on herself to change the disc. 

“Hold this, will you?” 

Gabriel nodded, taking the bowl in his hands and sharing a nervous look with Dean.

“Yeah, and if you’re going to threaten me, don’t waste your energy.” Jo called, her head buried in the rack of dvd’s. “I’m nice enough to keep it to myself until you can resolve your middle school romances, but this is going to be the main topic at dinner tonight, so I’d hurry if I were you.” 

She wasn’t sure if there had ever been two men that had fled a room at this speed. When Jo turned her head, the couch was empty and her bowl of cereal stood forgotten on the armrest. Cocking her head, she heard Dean go on the porch, yelling “CAS!” at the top of his lungs and the faint sound of archangel feet on the steps of the stairs. 

Utterly content, she settled on the couch, carefully balancing the bowl on her knees. She made sure the volume was loud enough to block out any eventual sounds from outside the room and checked her watch, reminding herself to talk to Bobby about dinner tonight. 

She wondered if he’d be okay with it if she invited Ash. And everyone else she knew.


End file.
